Save a Bottle, Grow Some (Hydroponic) Lettuce

Something that really bothers me when out and about is the number of plastic bottles I see littered. So, when a friend sent me a picture of the lettuce he grew in the same plastic bottles I saw laying uselessly around on the street, I knew I had to do the same!

Today, I have a continuous supply of fresh lettuce (even during Winter) and can rescue the littered bottles that I find! What's more, the plants are zero mess because there's no soil needed.

Just a warning before we begin though...your lettuce will become your children :D

• 1-2 liter bottles (or a cup/bowl)
• Toilet paper
• Packing foam or dish sponges without the hard scrubbing side
• Lettuce seeds (you can try other plants too such as herbs, spinach, and even tomatoes!)
• Many medium sized plastic bottles with a tapered neck

• optional fertilizer

First, cut off the bottom of your largest bottle(s) at around 2.5 inches. This is going to be the lettuce sprouting container.

Then, cut up your packing foam or dish sponge into cubes about 1 in. by 1 in. Keep in mind that this should be slightly bigger the drinking part of a your bottles. The foam is what your lettuce will set its roots in, kind of like the soil.

Fill your bottle container with the foam, then put it under the faucet. Try and arrange the foam as neatly and flat as possible.

Add water while pushing the cubes down until they're all moist.

Sprinkle lettuce seeds across the surface of the foam, then cover them with a single layer of toilet paper. (If yours has two layers, separate it.) If you're planting head lettuce, put 1-2 seeds per cube. If you're planting leaf lettuce, try 2-5.

Add more water to the container until the waterline is halfway up the container and the toilet paper is thoroughly wet.

Place the container in a sunny place for a week or two. If you notice the waterline goes down, add more water. Just like human toddlers, your lettuce toddlers will be curious and try to stick their roots into all the cubes around them. That's why it was important to make the cubes as neatly arranged as possible, so that they stick their roots in the least number of cubes. (In the picture they aren't well arranged.)

Once the sprouts have long roots and are around an inch tall, move on to the next step.

Now that your babies have started to grow up, they'll become more picky and need separate rooms, away from the rest of the family ;)

Take one of your medium sized bottles, cut the bottom off at ~3 in. and the top at ~2 in. When you put them inside of each other as shown in picture 2 the top needs to be off the bottom (so adjust according to the size of your bottle.)

Repeat this with as many bottles as you have/the number of foam cubes you have. If for some reason the bottom of your bottle is too wide, you can replace it with a cup. It's best to use a clear one just so you can track the water level, but if you only have opaque, that will work too.

Then separate the cubes in the sprouting container from one another and place 1 or 2 in each bottle neck. It's important that you don't break too many of the roots, so be gentle with your tugging!

Finally, fill the bottom up with as much water as is needed for half of the foam cube to be submerged. Here is where I start using fertilized water, but plain water would work too (just take longer). I use GH's MaxiGro.

You know how teenagers need a lot of food? So do teenage plants. As they grow super fast, they'll need a ton of water. Keep your eye on the water level, especially for opaque containers, so that they don't dry up. Once a plant's roots dry up, it's hard to save.

The water doesn't need to be exactly half way up the foam, just make sure the roots are touching it.

Be patient, and eventually you'll be able to have a huge salad! It's painful to cut off your dear plants, but make sure you do it before they get too big, otherwise there'll be a bunch of stalk and not much leaf.

But, here's a tip: if you plant head lettuce (as apposed to leaf lettuce like me), you can harvest leaves from the outside and they'll keep growing!!